Letters

A grandmother’s plea
It is really hard to fathom all the MI adoption laws (or is it lack of laws?) that appear to have been violated in this case (Adoption agencies question ruling in Holey custody case, 6/11). Adoption and foster case agencies, attorneys, legislatures, and even some FIA personnel seem to agree that there have been inappropriate decisions made on the part of Judge Pezzetti and Nanette Bowler.Yet those little girls have been sleeping in strange beds for the past 29 nights with only three hours of visitation per week scheduled for the Smiths. Doesn't Michigan have a process to bring these children home while the appeals court goes through their process? Where does the best interest of the children come into play?

Kari Mascar and Christine Rehagen said some very powerful things in Daniel Sturm's last article. I pray that things do move quickly and the children return to their home with the Smiths soon. Anyone who doesn't believe the trauma this situation is causing Lili and Elizabeth (Pearl), they shouldn't be working with children of abuse/neglect and adoption.

Leann Smith
Mineral Springs, W.Va.
(The writer is the grandmother of the children.)

Court ruling wrongheaded
Re: “Adoption agencies question ruling in Holey custody case” (6/11): How can any court system or judge do something like to two little children who have had their early life so confused already? Shame on the court system.
Joan Hoffman
Mandeville, LA.

Defending the sculptures
I enjoy your weekly publication very much, I like the alternative views expressed in the publication. It makes Lansing seem like a hipper/cooler community. It makes me smile, and your "This Modern World" cartoon by Tom Tomorrow makes my husband laugh out loud, which is a big accomplishment.

Now, I would like to express my opinion on your editorial "Mild in the Streets," concerning the Seward Johnson "Sculptures in the Streets" exhibit on the streets of Downtown Lansing. Yes, they are "Mild," and lots of Lansingites and visitors to the Capitol City can relate to them as "popular rubbish." However, as a citizen, suburban resident, mother, and grandmother, and art appreciator, these humorous sculptures are easy on the eyes and mind. Just what is needed as a summer exhibit in an outdoor setting, where a less massive sculpture foundry origins maybe damaged, carted away, or dumped in the Grand River by people expressing their own creative impulses.”
These sculptures are fun; you can take a walk with your parents and grandchildren downtown and enjoy the whimsy in the "trivial banality' of the sculptures and just smile at the reactions of others to the scuptures. These sculptures are entertaining and as "lacquered sentiment" and lowbrow art they are much better than the fiberglass decorated pigs, bulls and other barnyard inhabitants placed in public places covered by red, white, and blue, or 10,000 pieces of mirrors decorating a hoofed beast. Last year one Mid-Michigan community that takes itself very seriously when it comes to art decorated downtown streets with two dozen giant, collapsing apple-faced granny dolls in various stages of dress representative of the "artist’s vision," such as granny-apple Superman, granny-apple ballerina, or other highly unlikely persona.

As for high-brow art, my favorite image of a sculpture is a photo of a 12-foot-tall, white marble, Classical Greek style sculpture at the edge of a pond in a huge outdoor sculpture garden in the Allegheny Mountains of New York State. Intertwined around her legs is my then 2-year-old grandson, gazing upward with a true look of wonderment on his face. Isn't that what art is all about, expression, connecting, learning, enjoyment?

Peg McComb-Elowski
Grand Ledge

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